Hans Zimmer has been tapped to score the superhero sequel The American Spider-Man 2. The film is directed by Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) and stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Paul Giamatti, Denis Leary, Colm Feore, Chris Cooper, Sally Field, Chris Zylka, Marton Csokas and Felicity Jones. In the sequel, Peter Parker/Spider-Man faces a new villain, Electro, deals with the return of his old friend Harry Osborn and uncovers new clues about his past. Avi Arad (X-Men, Iron Man, Hulk) is producing the project with Matt Tolmach. Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci (Star Trek, Transformers) & Jeff Pinkner (Alias, Fringe) have written the screenplay with a previous draft by James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, White House Down). Zimmer’s involvement was first mentioned in an interview with Marc Webb yesterday at Comic-Con in San Diego conducted by Aimée Castle. We have since confirmed the assignment with other sources. The previous Spider-Man film featured a score composed by James Horner. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is set to be released on May 2, 2014 by Sony Pictures.

… yes, musically Marvel doesn’t understand the word “continuity”. None of their films or characters have musuical continuity with the sole exception of Captain America’s “theme” popping out in The Avengers.

No, Zimmer will not reuse any of Horners work. He has never recycled themes…we will get another batman/superman score full of: bass ostinotos, 2 chord themes, and foghorn brass “Bwwaaaaaahhhhm!”s. end OF STORY!

Another strike at Horner. Probably his descision not to continue. Zimmer seems to be scoring everything these days. Next you’ll hear that he will be scoring ‘Star Wars: Episode VII.’ Come on, Hans! take a breather and recharge your battery.

I would love to say something insightful and mature, but all I want to say is NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!
Why Zimmer? Why?
Christopher Young, David Arnold, Brian Tyler, Alexandre Desplat, Don Davis, Marco Beltrami….any composer that still knows and respects the fact that film score fans want a real, genuine orchestra with intricate moving parts, not just 80 + minutes of trailer music pounding us into submission.
Hopefully Zimmer’s score will be REJECTED.

That’s never going to happen. Hans Zimmer is always involved from the early stages of production to the finished product, he’s continually in fase with the director and producers. There’s no way they’re gonna reject the final score!

I think this is BAD. I love Zimmer, I really do. I listen to his Batman and Man of Steel music a lot, so I do appreciate what he can do for a comic book movie. But REALLY? He’s already scored movies for two of the most iconic comic book heroes, and now Spider-Man also? He’s monopolizing the genre. Also, even if this isn’t in the Avengers Marvel universe, it still makes the unfortunate fact more apparent that Marvel films seem to have no musical continuity. Unless James Horner had an awful time with the film, I see no reason why HE shouldn’t be scoring this. Zimmer will have had about 7 projects this year, he’s already begun Interstellar, and now he has yet another huge film to work on?

Oh well. I hope Hans’ keeps the overall tone and the main theme from the previous movie.

So he’s been always at the peak!
I don’t understand why people hate to see there is a one composer different from others. I don’t talk about Zimmer cloners, because they really can’t be like him.
Zimmer’s approach is very different I posted this comment on another website but it seems like it could be useful here:

I respect the above comments but personally I disagree. Most people are afraid of change because they think the new thing would be replaced to the old one. I love the the genius of Zimmer’s work. It’s something new and If I think there are other similarities well then I’m wrong.

I believe Zimmer thinned the line between the picture on the screen and the music playing on it. usually the composer understand the mood of the scene and tries to make a music equal to that mood or atmosphere. Zimmer goes beyond that, he goes through the mind of the characters and he’s not afraid to sacrifice the melodies in his mind to make something more effective. Look we are talking about a man who’s composed masterpieces like The Thin Red Line, The Lion King etc… definitely he CAN come up with new melodies like them but he tries to do something new. The one note of The Dark Knight for instance, can you come up with something more impressive than that ? now I hear a lot of people complaining about the harshness of that track and they never ask themselves this is the SOUNDTRACK of a maniac called Joker!
The Dark Knight Rises for instance, those big drums and Taikos of bane theme is exactly the way his character is. Heavy, Harsh and of course resemblance of the war drums. There is a war and there is soldiers in TDKR. The first scene of TDKR with that great music of Zimmer really inject the personality of Bane to my veins. He used Decay,Reverb with a high buffer and the result was something that has weight. This is something modern, this is something that may not be a good listen without the film but what are we talking about? Soundtracks, It must serve the picture no matter what.

Unfortunately I haven’t had the chance to watch Man of Steel but I’m sure It’s something special too. Now I don’t say everyone should be Hans Zimmer (Obviously they can’t) but I say there could be a room for a composer like Zimmer to make something new and special and there must be a room for John Williams with his beautiful musics.

You have some points. E.g. I hate it, when people say, Hans can’t do anything than computers. That’s not true, he did some great orchestral work (best example: Lion King’) and his style is not always the same (‘Sherlock Holmes’ it’s typical Hans, but not replaceable).

And I do like the Joker theme for it’s simple dissonance. But Bane? Really?! Yeah, the STYLE was right, but that doesn’t mean, not to use a proper melody.

Hans just thinks of the simple emotion. But why not be creative with it? I’ve never heard a Williams Theme, that didn’t wake any emotions, but I heard enough of Zimmer’s ‘revolutionary ideas’, which didn’t touch me that much.

He can do amazing themes and he can use them in a creative way (Pirates 3) but in the last 3 years he rarely did. The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel was just style over substances and I don’t need to pay a few million dollars for him, if there are cheaper musicians do to so.

All great points here. I just have to chime in and say I agree pretty much entirely. I am SO sick of all the hate Hans Zimmer is received. I have been a long time fan of his work for decades now and I believe he has always been at his peak. His music has always been unique and different from the start and is he is just pushing the limits even further. I believe what filmmakers see in him is his ability to enhance these worlds in film with his music. Exactly what a film score composer should do. He takes it to another level and experiments with music to keep the entire idea of composing for film alive. If you are not a fan, or don’t like his music, that is completely okay. What is not okay, is the excessive trashing and ignorant hate that is even shown from well established film music critics.

Zimmer is everywhere, my brother loves James Horner. he was existed for the sequel. Not anymore. So. Horner better return for the sequel and the other spider man movies. No one dose The Amazing Spiderman theme better then the first composer.

I don’t hate Zimmer, in fact I love some of his work, but anyone that can honestly say that Zimmer is the perfect choice for Spider-Man, obviously hasn’t ever heard any of Zimmer’s music. He is a terrible choice, and the Score will reflect that.

You have to keep in mind that we don’t exactly know how The Amazing Spider Man 2 is going to be like. If the official photos that have been released are any indication, this film looks like its going in a very different direction from the first. (As sequels tend to try to do but still build upon their predecessors) Maybe Marc Webb wants a more electronic sounding score for Electro… Or maybe this film has a ton more action in it that fits better with Zimmer. We can’t know until we see the finished product.

Horror on earth…Let’s Pray for marvel to choose David Newman or John Williams for “Guardians of Galaxy” and return the orchestral glory for the Marvel/DC music, not just a ensemble of drums and low strings.
Examples for saying Maestros Newman and Williams

DN: Galaxy Quest, Serenity, 102 Dalmatians or The Mighty Ducks
JW: Well all the Star Wars Films, Superman (although is not very conventional to the modern hero’s music)

If they wanted percussion and a big score, they should have hired Incantation (who’ve worked on a number of famous scores, including “The Mission” and “Willow”) and book an orchestra like the LSO, to perform with them. They improvise great stuff, on top of written material.

True, but if he wants to upset allot of fans and make Spiderman 2 sound like Inception and Pirates, then he’s doing a good job of upsetting the fans. Hans Zimmer was ok Batman, Inception, Pirates, but Spiderman…It would sound too much like the other movies that Hans Zimmer did. We care about James Horner.

Great! Why don’t they just have Hans Zimmer do the music to every movie released from now on? It’s seems it’s heading that way anyways. Look, I am a Zimmer fan and was excited to hear last year that he was doing the music for MAN OF STEEL & then THE LONE RANGER and I loved both of those scores, but I also loved what James Horner wrote for THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and was hoping he would continue with the sequels. This news makes me so angry! I’m sure Zimmer will do a great job, but I wanted another Horner SPIDER-MAN score! 🙁

Zimmer’s score for The Lone Ranger is the proof that he can compose something “old school”, and the same can be said about Pirates and Gladiator, for example. So, it’s not an apocalyptic news. However, Hans wouldn’t be my first choice to score a movie like this. So, I do prefer the return of James Horner. He has done a great job on the first film.

I love Hans Zimmer. I do. I loved The Dark Knight, Man of Steel, Pirates, Inception, etc. But I also adore Horner’s way of scoring and I feel like he hasn’t done much lately. One of the reasons I loved Amazing Spider-Man was because he scored it and I loved the tone he set for the movie. I just feel like Hans Zimmer could work on other projects at the moment because he’s so popular. Horner has a magical sound, where Zimmer has a down-to-earth, in your bones sound and you know what? Who knows? Maybe Zimmer will surprise us all again in the second one, but I do love Horner. I just hope that Zimmer will use more variety in this movie, instead of his usual booming sound that just rattles me every time I go see one of his movies.